


A New Coda

by fandomlimb



Category: Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: M/M, alternative ending, musician Elio
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2018-12-13 02:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11750364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomlimb/pseuds/fandomlimb
Summary: AU where Elio attends music school in the States.





	1. Chapter 1

The idea began to form no later than a week after we’d said goodbye in Rome. The ghost of his lips and hands and body was still so real all I had to do was close my eyes and feel transported: his warmth, his skin, the pressure, the solidity of him was still alive and flickering inside me. I’d open my eyes and gasp, my body alight and eager from the mere memory of him inside of me. Unvoiced, over the following weeks, the idea percolated in the back of my mind, ever present like the silent chatter of one’s own inner monologue, persistent and stubborn as grief, a subconscious chant like the chorus of a song you can’t get out of your head, repeating: _This can’t be the end, I won’t let this be the end, I’ll find my way back to us._

I didn’t tell my parents about my scheme, not until I’d done the research thoroughly enough to present my case and anticipate their objections and questions as to why I would want to go all the way to the States to study at a music conservatory. Why there, when my father taught at a university where I could not only benefit from free tuition but the network of all his colleagues and friends? Or, if I had no desire to attend my father’s university or a conservatory in Italy, why not consider a European music school in Paris, London, Vienna? Why the States, when I’d barely expressed an interest in traveling there, let alone living and attending school for four or more years? Why isolate myself in this way and travel halfway across the world, alone, separated from my language, culture, family and friends?

The answer, of course, was Oliver. But I could never admit that to them. Never admit how willing I was to steer the trajectory of my future for even the slightest possibility that our lives would intersect again, as if by chance, the same chance that landed his application and passport photo on my father’s desk and ultimately got him accepted for the summer residency, which is to say, not by chance at all, because I chose him and would always keep choosing him. _I was accepted to Juilliard, I’ll be starting in the fall,_ I imagined telling him over the phone, the mere suggestion of our impending closeness enough to bridge the 5,000-mile gap that stretched between my aching heart and his. I imagined twirling my fingers around the curly telephone chord as I told him, imagined him balancing his own telephone in the crook of his chin and shoulder and then transferring it to his hand to ask me again what I’d just said. _I’m moving to New York City for music school._ I imagined the surprised smile spreading across his face, the unfurling of hope and relief in both of our chests, both of our fingers wrapping around our telephone chords because that was as close to wrapping our fingers around each other as the impossible distance between us would allow.

Even after that first phone call after Rome, when he called to say he’d arrived safely back in New York City and the illusion of a present tense of us closed like a curtain into the past tense before I even knew enough to protest and cry out _Wait! Not yet! I need more time, don’t stop yet, never stop!_ I wished, that night, that he’d never called at all, that we’d never speak again, because hearing his far-away voice, the tinny echo quality of the connection like a wind tunnel, was more painful than hearing nothing at all. Then I wished I could get on a plane that instant and show up at his door, uninvited: _I need more of you, forever_. Part of me knew what I was dreaming and hoping for was a ghost future. But I didn’t care. Or I cared too much. Either way, the idea began to take shape, and once it did, all I had to do was tell myself that America had been the dream all along. Oliver had just allowed me to realize that. I made myself believe that.

So I researched. Made long-distance phone calls and requested informational packets and course catalogues to be air mailed across the ocean. In the fall, I presented my case to my parents. I’d be applying and auditioning for Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music in New York City; Curtis in Philadelphia; Cleveland Institute of Music and Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. I’d looked at the audition dates and they were all generally in the last three weeks of February; I would easily be able to fly into Cleveland then take a bus to Philadelphia and another to New York, from which I’d fly back to Italy. I didn’t tell them that the only schools I actually cared about were in New York City. I needed to convince them with all the strength of my conviction that these American music schools were the best in the world and that was the reason I was dead set on going.

If my father knew, or suspected, that I had any other motivation behind my sudden interest in the USA besides the prestige of these music academies, he was kind enough not to voice it aloud to my mother or me. Instead, he listened as I outlined why this was the best course for my future: the European schools were old and stodgy; America was the land of invention, innovation and freedom of expression. I’d grown bored of transcription and I had a burgeoning interest in composition and contemporary music. In fact, Oberlin had the world's first conservatory program in electronic music (not that I was that interested or even enjoyed electronic music, but it did help accentuate my point). I needed to get out of my father’s academic shadow, carve my own path. My English was good and would only improve. I was confident this was the right choice. My parents listened. They presented the arguments I’d expected but were not intractable. They encouraged me to keep my options open; I could audition for as many schools in the States as I wanted as long as I applied to ones in Italy and Europe as well.

I proceeded with my plans, but never wrote to Oliver about them or spoke about them during our phone calls, which became less frequent as the fall crept on. I didn’t want to jinx it, by telling him, maybe. Or seem too eager? My plane and bus tickets were bought, my audition times scheduled. Then came the news that he was actually coming back to visit us for Christmas like he’d promised. I told my parents not to tell him about my plans for American music school yet, not until after my auditions. When they asked why, I told them it would embarrass me if I didn’t get in and he knew I’d tried. I thought, maybe, when we’re alone again, together again, I’ll tell him. It would be so much better than over the phone. And if I don’t get in anyway, at least he’d know how badly I’ve tried, how badly I still want.

But those words never left my lips, because when he came for Christmas it was with the news that he was engaged.

I didn’t let myself cry until after New Year's, after he’d gone, and the stupidity of all I'd let myself hope for settled once again like ash on the bombed-out and barren landscape of my grief, the reality that we were truly over, and worse, that we'd never speak of our love ever again, choking me like dust and smoke.

I decided to keep my auditions anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

My mother almost insisted on accompanying me to the States for my auditions, despite the expense of the air and bus fares. In the end, I persuaded her that this was something I needed to do on my own, a rite of passage, my moment to shirk the stifling hold of adolescence and greet the “rosy fingered dawn” of my adulthood as an inverse Odysseus, needing to set out as far from home as I possibly could, alone.

Alone was a familiar feeling since Oliver.

I stuffed my hiker’s backpack myself, not like when Oliver and I had set off to Rome and my mother helped me pack and fussed over me and insisted I take a dinner jacket. When deciding whether or not to bring the dinner jacket with me for my auditions I found in its pocket a crumpled napkin from Caffe Sant’Eustachio, the sight of which left my ribs achy and my lungs breathless and hollow like I’d just been accosted in a dark alley and kicked without mercy by a faceless stranger. A few stale crumbs fell from the napkin onto the floor. The others I crushed between my thumb and forefinger until my fingertips felt raw and my breathing returned to normal.

I kept my backpack purposefully (and perhaps foolishly) light. Underthings, one pairs of slacks, one pair of jeans, a few tshirts, a dress shirt, sweater and winter jacket. Empty scorebooks, sheet music, several novels, Walkman and cassettes, my journal, pencils and pens. A camera and a few rolls of black and white film. My tooth brush, tooth paste, razor, soap and sleeping pills.

My itinerary was to fly into Cleveland, audition at CIM, take a shuttle bus to Oberlin and stay there for three days for my audition and to meet with professors and attend a few classes, then take a bus from Cleveland to New York and stay in New York for a week, splitting my time between a hostel and student housing.

I was applying to dual degrees in piano and composition, even though I had no desire in fact to be a concert pianist and actually preferred playing guitar. Despite what I’d told my parents, my heart still belonged to transcribing more than composing. But I’d gotten swept up in a tide of my own making and once the course of action was set I was too proud to change it. I told myself that Oliver had no bearing whatsoever on my decision to go through with my auditions. He was getting married; I might be moving to the United States for school. These two futures had no relationship to one another. They were just “the way it goes”. I wouldn't bother to tell him I would be in New York, even though I had his address memorized and had spent myself raw numerous nights while imagining us together in his cramped, book-filled apartment, rocking into each other, the cacophony of the city working its rhythm into each of his fevered thrusts, each of us taking the warmth we each needed from each other’s bodies, the only possible solace after the cold winter we’d spent apart and the future without him that stretched endless in front of me like numb oblivion. I imagined his voice saying ‘Forever, Elio’ like a promise and plea for forgiveness as he fucked me and I let him, forever.

Like the crumbs in the napkin I’d found, I forced myself to grind this fantasy to dust. I would not lower myself to seeking him out, opening myself up to more despair and rejection. I would casually drop it into a letter after the fact: _PS - Was in New York for auditions. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you. Maybe another time? Hope the wedding planning is going well. Later!_ It gave me cruel pleasure imagining his crestfallen face after learning I’d traveled all the way to his city and not bothered even trying to meet up for coffee. Let him know what it felt like to be so callously dismissed. But he knew me well enough to read between the lines. He’d know I’d have purposely gone out of my way to avoid him. Surely he’d know that to meet under the pretense of a quick catch-up at a diner or cafe would be impossible for me. He’d see right through my pathetic ruse, understand at once my real reason for applying to schools so far from home and so close to him. After his visit at Christmas, we’d barely spoken. I had no reason to think he wanted that to change. He had a wedding to plan; he had a woman he surely loved and wanted to spend his Forever with. I had a future to plan, too, without him.

* * *

 

My parents insisted on seeing me off at the airport in Rome. I’d turned 18 at the start of January, but standing there with my hiker’s backpack and seeing the worry and care in my parents’ eyes made me feel like a child being sent off for their first day of school by weepy overprotective parents. My parents were never the weepy sort, so their concern for me put me on edge even though I knew that made me seem peevish and ungrateful. I was worried they’d seen straight through me and were merely indulging me by going along with the charade that I actually wanted to attend school in the States.

“And you’re sure you don’t want us to tell Oliver you’ll be in New York?” my mother asked as we stood in the check-in line. She’d already asked me this question 100 times and each time I’d refused. “I’d feel much better knowing you’ll have someone to look out for you in such a place. I’m sure he’d be delighted to show you around and introduce you to his fiancée.”

My parents knew on some level that what had transpired between Oliver and I amounted to much more than friendship or platonic affinity. But we’d never talked about it, except for the one conversation I’d had with my father at the end of the summer after I returned from Rome. They knew Christmas had changed things between Oliver and I, but we never discussed that either. I considered it a kindness on their part that they let me grieve alone. And they genuinely wished Oliver great happiness in his upcoming marriage. I refused to acknowledge that they had any inkling of an idea that my interest in attending school in the States had anything to do with Oliver and the absurd hope I still clung to in the deepest, most secret and shameful recesses of my heart that there was still any possibility of a future for us. The real reason I’d kept the schools in Ohio on my list after I found out Oliver was engaged was to keep up the act that this whole trip wasn’t just an expensive reason to spend a few days in Oliver’s city. I could barely admit to myself that was the reason I'd started researching these schools in the first place. I was mortified by my naiveté; that I'd sustained myself on the tiniest morsel of hope while secretly gorging on a feast of fever dreams about a life together in New York City: him teaching, me studying, him showing me his favorite haunts, him introducing me to his friends and colleagues, us eventually moving in together, falling into patterns of cozy domesticity during the day and fucking like crazy during the night. And now, knowing full well I couldn't, _wouldn't_ let myself see him at all even though Juilliard was only a few train stops away from his apartment on 114th Street gave me the near-hallucinatory determination of a zealous pilgrim undergoing a hunger strike. Though my expectations for this whole trip were laughably low I managed to feign nervousness and excitement about my auditions and the prospect of spending the next several years of my life outside of Italy.

“I’m sure he’s busy, Mama. I’ll be fine on my own. If I have time between my auditions and interviews I’ll ring him up for lunch, okay?“

“Please do,” my mother said. “He’s like family. Family does for family.”

“Give him our best if you do see him,” my father said and embraced me. “Good luck, Elio. _Gey gezunterheyt_.” My father rarely used Yiddish or Hebrew in casual conversation except for that traveler’s send-off, which we said whenever a loved one was about to depart on a journey.

“ _Il bocca al lupo. Bon voyage_ ,” my mother said and kissed my hand.

If Oliver were here, he would have no doubt said ' _Later!'_ and given her two quick kisses on the cheeks.

I still heard his voice so clearly in my head. Heard his casually flippant American accent, the lilting inflection that held so much promise and so much dismissal at the same time. It was the memory of his voice and the knowledge deep down that ' _Later!'_ would become—had already become—' _Too Late'_ that made my eyes burn as I hugged my mother with more force than I’d done since I was a child.

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” I said and promised to call when I arrived in Cleveland to let them know I had arrived safely.


	3. Chapter 3

I’d planned to spend part of the flight productively, either transcribing music or reviewing my audition pieces and application materials, but an anxious malaise set over me once we were underway and I found myself staring out the small circular window with my headphones on, in a sort of listless daze, wishing I’d brought a pack of gum to keep my ears from popping painfully. Instead of concentrating on the open scorebook in front of me, I stared out the window, letting my eyes go in and out of focus. I saw the view outside as three distinct layers: the constant presence of the airplane’s wing; the shifting white clouds that resembled an ocean’s surf; and the abstract ever-changing geometry of fields, rivers, roads and towns far below. I wanted to write a composition that mirrored how the streaming wisps of clouds dancing over the jigsaw puzzle of interlocking land shapes below stirred in me a feeling of weightlessness and dread and isolation and connection to not only my home country I was passing over but every stranger sitting on the plane, each of us in our own separate worlds and crammed in uncomfortably close together simultaneously. But instead of writing I ate both of the ham sandwiches my mother had packed me and listened to Liszt on my Walkman.

The middle seat in my row was empty and an Italian man probably in his early-30s occupied the aisle seat. He was tall and stocky; I was relieved we had an empty seat between us because without it I’m sure our limbs would have pressed uncomfortably close together the entire flight. We exchanged a few pleasantries before the flight took off but I wasn’t in the mood to chat and quickly retreated behind my headphones. When the flight attendant came around with drinks, he ordered two miniature _grappas_ , drank both of them, and promptly fell asleep. I observed him through my peripheral vision, not wanting to look directly at him in case he woke up abruptly and caught me regarding him. He smelled strongly of aftershave and though the hair on his head was thin and wispy the rest of him seemed to be covered in a thick dark pelt. His chin was scruffy and I guessed he’d have a pronounced five o’clock shadow by the time our flight was over. Curly black hair protruded out of the open top buttons of his white collared shirt and on his forearms where his sleeves were rolled up. While he dozed, every few minutes his head tipped forward so his chin rested on his chest before his neck snapped back up involuntarily. As he breathed in a steady rhythm, each exhalation caused his exposed chest hair to ripple faintly, calling to my mind the image of breeze blowing on a ryegrass field. I found this strangely fascinating, and though the man himself was not physically arousing to me I briefly imagined what it would be like to run my fingers through the rug of hair that most likely covered his whole body. After about an hour he woke up and wrapped the thin blanket the flight attendants had given us over his eyes so it became a makeshift pillow and eye cover. He began to softly snore and his mouth hung open, revealing a row of crooked bottom teeth.

Ever since the summer I’d found myself doing this more frequently: observing men and women and trying to gage my body’s reactions to them with a sense of objectivity, trying to answer the question of _yes, I want_ you or _no, I don’t_. Are you just my type (whatever that may be) and if so, how long can I hold my gaze to yours before either of us looks away and smiles at the ground and looks back up again? At first I was rarely tempted to do anything more than flirt at a distance. But after Oliver’s disastrous visit at Christmas a new fervor took over me: on trains and buses, in cafes and bistros, in school classrooms and hallways, in the cafeteria, in the library, on the street, on the dance floor, at bars and discos, in public bathrooms and parks, I began searching obsessively for that one stranger who would make Oliver disappear. Reduce his significance to six weeks and a handful of kisses and fucks. I was hoping, I suppose, for a signal from myself that would help me clarify what Oliver had meant to me and why I was so loathe to let him go even after he’d made it perfectly clear that the future I’d imagined for us was a one-sided fantasy, a farce. After my eighteenth birthday in early January I spent countless nights at university bars with my friends, drinking myself into a stupor and dancing late into the night with American exchange students, usually blond, usually women. Though sometimes not.

Once I ventured on my own to a gay bar but I didn’t stay long. In my head I’d imagined all sorts of pulse-quickening scenarios: eyeing a man beneath the throbbing, rhythmic club lights, grinding my erection on him, teasing him, the tight grip of his hands in my hair, him tipping my head back to lick the sweat off my neck, needy wet tongues, teeth-clattering kisses, a dark hallway, me on my knees, sweet surrender. Imagining all that could happen with a phantom stranger painfully aroused me but once I was actually there and the reality presented itself before me, I was too nervous to leave my seat at the bar. I scanned the dance floor from a distance and let a few men chat me up and buy me a drink. I scanned the dance floor, my eyes drifting over a whole roomful of Not-Olivers. Not-Oliver with scraggly brown hair and a wolfish grin. Not-Oliver with the lithe gyrating hips and ecstatic smile. Not-Oliver with the fogged-up glasses and little pot belly. Not-Oliver with the beakish nose and gorgeously defined arms. Thin waifish men, cut and muscled men, thick and burly men, young and old, swirled around my vision in a whirling dervish but I was the one who felt dizzy and disoriented. The sea of Not-Olivers—and by the same extension—Not-Elios overwhelmed and saddened me.

I left the bar alone. Stumbled home alone.

_If not now, when?  
If not Oliver, who?_

If I hadn’t slept with Oliver, I doubt I would have noticed the man beside me on the airplane in the same way I did now. I didn’t want to flirt with him or talk to him even, but the sight of his thick chest hair triggered a curiosity in me and I allowed myself to wonder about him in a way I never would have let myself before the summer.

He awoke again when the carts for dinner came around. He ordered another two small drinks. I was surprised when he offered me one of them.

“I hate to drink and dine alone,” he said, handing me the miniature.

“Thanks, but I couldn’t possibly.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Please. Drink, drink. Saluti.”

He gulped back his drink and proceeded to use his teeth to tear open the plastic sleeve covering his dinner roll. He smeared butter onto it and took a bite, causing a greasy sheen to cover his lips and chin. I sipped from the _grappa_ he’d offered me and immediately felt some of the tension I’d been harboring earlier melt away.

“You’re a musician?” he asked with a gesture toward my scorebook, which I’d placed on the empty seat between us so I could eat my meal.

“Yes. Piano mostly. I’m on my way to audition for music school.”

“I don’t know really anything about music, technically. But my grandmother was an opera singer so I feel it sometimes in the blood.”

“Do you sing?” I asked.

“Only for my supper,” he said and let out a funny sort of laugh, much lighter and trilling than I would have expected coming from someone of his stature.

“What brings you to the States?” I asked.

“I live there. I was home in Rome for a funeral.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.”

I didn’t quite know what the etiquette was for making small talk while eating beside a bereaved stranger on a plane, so we chewed in silence for the next few minutes.

“Where are you traveling to?” he asked.

“After we land in New York I’m taking a connecting flight to Cleveland for auditions. Then I’ll be back in New York for about a week for a few more. Do you live in New York?”

“Yes, for about 15 years now. I came here to study economics and business at NYU, hated it, flunked out, ended up working the nightclub scene for awhile and now I design costumes.”

“Wow. Costumes for what?”

“Theater and opera mostly.”

This took me by surprise. “Did you always know you wanted to design costumes?”

“No, not at all. Well, my grandmother, as I said, was an opera singer before she had children. One of my favorite things to do as a child was look through all her albums full of press photos and clippings. To me it was more fascinating to see her in all her roles and costumes than any book or story could be. But other than that, I had no inkling that this is what I would end up doing. No formal training until I began apprenticing. I always liked to draw people and I love history. But it wasn’t until I was living in New York that all the threads came together, as it were. Pun intended,” he said with his same odd little chortle and a wink.

“That’s quite an interesting career trajectory.”

“Well that’s New York for you. You go there looking for yourself and end up finding the self you’ve hidden instead.”

“I have to say, and I hope this isn’t offensive in any way, but I wouldn’t have pegged you for a costume designer. I just mean because you’re wearing a white shirt and khaki pants. I would have thought, if you design clothes for a living…”

“…I’d be wearing something less boring?” he finished my thought for me and laughed his tinkling laugh. “It’s funny you say that. And no, I’m not offended. One of the first things my mentor taught me is that no one trusts a flamboyantly dressed costume designer. It makes them think you’re paying much more attention to how you’re dressed than about how you’re creating the life of the characters. This,” he said, gesturing to his clothes, “has been my uniform for the last decade or so. Except I usually wear a tie and jacket as well.”

“I admit that to me clothes are a bit of an after-thought. I don't think too much about what I'm wearing, except for if I need to go to a wedding or something like that.”

“Ha! That is what many people, especially men, think. But every silhouette tells a story, does it not, even if you don’t intend it to. Clothes are how we tell the world: this is who I am. Or, how we blend in and hide who we are. Intentional or not, everything you wear projects an identity. You, for example, I would have pegged for a student before you told me. The backpack, tennis shoes, frayed jeans, woven bracelets. If I were to imagine you as a character in a play right now, it would be at the start of your journey. An empty stage, lit only by dawn’s golden light, your backpack flung over one shoulder, head held high, ready to take a step toward your future.”

“You see all that from my clothes?”

“Only because you let me see it.”

The flight attendants came through then to clear away our trash and he pulled out a sketch pad and a box of pens and colored pencils.

“I know you told me your name when we first sat down, but I was a little out of it and I must admit now I’ve forgotten,” he said.

“Oh, that’s alright. It’s Elio.”

“And I’m Giuseppe. Thank you for talking with me. I’ve got some work to do now if you don’t mind. But, after, if you’re still awake, it’d be an honor to sketch you. You have a face the Old Masters would have loved. Would you let me?”

I was flattered and felt my cheeks redden. No one had ever asked to draw me before.

“No, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Wonderful.”

He lost himself in his work then and our conversation came to a halt. In addition to his sketchpad he also took out a marked-up script. He flipped through it to certain passages and began sketching out the characters. I put on my headphones again and pretended to read, but I was more interested in watching him work. The large hand that held his pen was covered in thick dark hair up to his knuckles, but the nimble way his pen and pencils moved across the page was graceful and light. I’d never seen before in one man the juxtaposition of such manliness and surprising loveliness. He drew mostly elaborate gowns in bright purples, pinks and reds, with massive feather headdresses, adorned with boas and beads. Page after page. Gown after gown. Just as I had briefly imagined what it would feel like to run my hands through the thick dark hair on his chest, I now imagined running my hands through a closet filled with silks and satins, wrapping myself in a cocoon of cool, crisp fabric. Would that help me understand who I was, who I desired? That image cleared away and was replaced by another one that cut me down to the quick. A billowy light blue linen shirt, hanging outside to dry and warmed from the mid-day sun, swaying gently in the breeze. For just a fraction of a second I could smell Oliver, the scent of his skin a perfect mix of laundry detergent, sun tan lotion and the briny sea. I longed to wrap myself in his billowy shirt and cry and cry. But I’d left that shirt at home. It was a summer shirt after all, and I was headed toward a harsh American winter.

I felt suddenly, overwhelmingly tired. I wanted to stay awake and watch Giuseppe work and I wanted to let him draw me, let him see me, but I was embarrassed as well and rationalized that if I didn’t sleep during the flight my jet lag would make my audition in two days time a total nightmare. So I surreptitiously took two sleeping pills from my bag, shut my eyes and let the hum and vibration of the plane’s engine lull me deep into sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has left a nice comment or kudos on this piece!! Again, sorry my updates are happening once every blue moon. I still have plans to keep working on this one. <3 <3


	4. Chapter 4

The beginning of the dream was achingly familiar. Since the summer, I’d dreamt of Oliver with such frequency and awoke feeling so reliably bereft that I suppose I should have thought of them as recurring nightmares. Except the dreams provided a longed for comfort, too, by allowing me to touch him and hear his voice so clearly again. In the same way that certain smells can without warning viscerally evoke long-dormant memories and transport you to a different version of yourself (a you perhaps you’d thought never to encounter again) only to have the memory recede in a single breath just as quickly as it came, dreaming of Oliver was both a balm of warm nostalgia and a painful reminder of all that was lost between us. All that would never be.

In some ways it was like coming across a fantasy book I’d read obsessively as a child and thought I’d forgotten until I opened it again and found that every dog-eared page, every underlined phrase, every doodle scribbled in the margin, every scuff mark and smudge offered a wealth of returned memories almost as dear as the characters and story itself. How disappointed I’d been at the age of seven or so when I realized that unlike the precocious protagonists of the story, I’d never travel to a magical kingdom and claim my rightful place as ruler of the high court, I’d never fly on a dragon’s back, never call upon my inner reserves of power and grit and save the world from imminent doom. How cheated I felt, how filled with a child’s righteous anger, that I’d been hoodwinked and duped by adults into thinking magic was real. I’d always be just me, normal boy Elio. At the time it seemed like it would never be enough.

I awake in the dream in my summer bedroom. I look out my window into the pale blue morning and see that Oliver and Vimini are already outside, sitting on a rock and talking by the sea as was their habit. It’s a comfort to see them there together, heads bent close, deep in conversation. I decide to bike into B. early and pick up Oliver’s translated pages for him, to save him the trip and assure us plenty of time alone together later that afternoon for lazy lovemaking. Whereas in real life the road into town is quite flat and bounded by grass fields, now the ride into B. is one impossibly long descent skirting a winding cliff overlooking diamond-sparkling waters. I soar downhill with my arms raised up and out, using only my knees to steer around the curving dirt road, my head tipped back, eyes stinging from the wind, my whole being hovering somewhere between crushing fear and a rush of euphoric freedom.

I glide into the town square and in one swift, fluid motion swing my right leg over the bike’s crossbar to briefly ride side-saddle before easing to a stop with the lightest of pressure on the hand breaks, hopping off and parking the bike against the translator’s building. In reality, I never met Oliver’s translator. In the dream I step into his small office, which is dark, musty and crammed impossibly full of teetering stacks of books, papers, files and all manner of clocks. Dust specks swirl in a small patch of window light and my nose itches painfully like I’m about to sneeze, but I hold it in, taking a strange pleasure in the not-quite-comfortable pressure of aborted release. I approach the translator’s desk. It’s covered with such high paper piles that his face is entirely obscured.

“I’m here for Oliver’s pages,” I say.

A wrinkled hand, mottled with purple sunspots, pushes a file toward me between the precarious paper towers.

I reach out to grab the file but he doesn’t release it from his grasp. With Oliver’s file still suspended between us, the translator speaks to me then in Hebrew, in language rich with poetry, almost like he’s singing but more like he’s chanting or davening. I understand every word, even though in reality I never learned Hebrew well enough to converse, only to sound out the words and mimic the phonics of prayers sung annually at our holiday dinners and on the High Holy Days. But in the dream, it’s as if this unseen man is King David composing his psalms only for me and I receive every word and assure myself that I’ll never to forget them. In my faulty dream logic I have no problem imagining that I’ll translate his poetry flawlessly when I’m awake. I’ll publish them even! I’m sure that the giddy feeling, like I’ve cracked a safe found in the wooden bones of a sunken ship, will follow me through to the morning, and the next day and all my life. It feels like I’m standing there listening to him for a very long time, long enough that my arm aches from holding the file, but I don’t want him to stop.

A cuckoo clock that belonged to my grandfather hoots thirteen times, causing a sudden panic to rise in me because I’m supposed to meet Oliver back in my room after lunch and I’m sure now I’ll be late.

I grab his file and dash outside to retrieve my bike. Only I’m dismayed to find that the whole town square is filled with red bikes that all look exactly like mine. Identical bikes cover every available surface and they’re all locked up, even the one I was sure was mine that I leaned against the wall before I lost track of time with the translator. Bikes are stacked high up along the entire length of light poles, around the perimeter of the wrought iron fence surrounding the War Memorial, and are even filling up the town square’s fountain. Water spews out between hundreds of spinning spokes, spraying the air like sea mist.

I squint up into the sun. It should still be the morning but the sun isn’t behaving as it should. It’s too low, too round and red. What happened to the morning? The promise of a lazy afternoon? I wasted the day somehow and now I’m running out of time to get to Oliver.

My panic begins to rise in earnest now.

“Excuse me, which of these is my bike?” I ask a passing stranger, who shrugs and keeps walking. I run to the nearest general store to buy clippers to break the locks but when I try to explain what I need to the shopkeeper she kicks me out, threatening to call the police and report me as a bicycle thief. I pick a bike out of the indistinguishable mass and attempt to wrench apart the lock's chain with my hands. It doesn’t budge. I feel frustrated, defeated. I sit down and put my head in my hands. I smell a metallic tang on my hands and see with horror a chain link pattern of blood-red imprints seared deeply into my skin.

I go the fountain and run the water over my burning hands until the imprints disappear. Then I sit back down and let myself weep.

I feel a hand on my shoulder, a reassuring pressure. I know it’s Oliver before he says anything.

“What’s wrong Elio?”

“I don’t know which is my bike. And anyway, I don’t have a key. I want to go home but I can’t.”

“We can walk instead.”

“But that will take hours.”

“I’m in no rush.”

He reaches out a hand to pull me up, our fingers lingering together longer than they probably should in such a public place. His hair is rimmed with a crown of fiery gold from the late afternoon sun. His summer skin glows and I know it will be warm and soft under my lips, hot and delicious as Mafalda’s fresh baked bread. I’m struck, as I always am, by his astonishing beauty.

He pats the dust off my ass and pant legs for me in a friendly, joking way, then reaches down to grab his translated pages. He looks them over and frowns.

“Well, this is unexpected,” he says.

“What?”

“It appears there’s been another mix-up. These pages are all in Caucasian Albanian, a language spoken by Christians two centuries ago in what is now Azerbaijan. I wonder how that happened. Ah well. There’s always tomorrow.”

We walk back home, occasionally bumping hips and jostling each other in teasing anticipation of our time alone together. He’s right, though, we’re in no hurry.

* * *

I woke up to a different hand on my shoulder, giving me a polite nudge.

“Elio, Elio. We’re going to land soon,” Giuseppe said, his voice pulling me back into consciousness. “You were out cold for hours there. Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes, thanks.” I rubbed my eyes and tried to remember the part of my dream I’d been sure I wouldn’t forget, something about an old man speaking Hebrew. But it was too late. His poetry—well technically, _my_ poetry, since it came from my brain—had vanished. “What time is it?”

“Local time is just about 7:30pm. When’s your connecting flight?”

“9:00pm.”

“You’ll have plenty of time, then. Just make sure you’re in the right terminal.”

“OK, thanks, I will. God, I have to piss like a race horse.”

Giuseppe laughed. “You can probably sneak in a quick run to the bathroom before the flight attendants come around for last checks before we land.”

I got up to use the bathroom and when I came back we were just about to begin our final descent. I gathered up all my things and packed up my backpack.

“I was enjoying watching you draw before I fell asleep,” I told Giuseppe. “You’re very talented. Do you have any shows running with your costumes in them? I’d love to see one when I’m back in the city.”

“How lovely of you. The biggest show I’m working on right now is in pre-production, but I’ve always got things here and there I’m working on if you’re interested. Here, why don’t I give you my card.”

“Wonderful, thank you.”

“Best of luck on your auditions. Feel free to give me a ring.”

The plane landed and we went our separate ways. I wasn’t sure I’d actually call him up but I was happy to have made a friend.

I made my way to the gate for my connecting flight, checked in, grabbed some fast food and tried to keep my eyes open.

By the time I arrived at the airport-adjacent hotel I’d booked in Cleveland, it was nearly midnight. Technically, it was still the same day as I’d left Rome, though that was only because of the trick of traveling through time zones. I’d gotten six hours of time back but had no use of them really. I had a free day tomorrow to get my bearings and my first audition was the day after that. I was looking forward to it, abstractly, but part of me still didn’t know what the hell I was doing here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love to write dream sequences - thanks for letting me indulge :)


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